Nakashima

7 Cambridge Street, The Rocks
Tel 9241 1364

It was a leisure walk from Circular Quay.  I wandered around the Rocks area today.

Since I read about a hidden gems in The Rocks...

And, here I am... Nakashima!

A petite Japanese restaurant ^^

Not hard to choose... my favorite Jap foods... Tempura...

Ah.... tempura lunch set ($17).  Salmon sashimi's just nice but the kuppa maki's very.. very good.  The rice 's soft and sticky which contrasts and compliment the crunchiness of fresh cucumber. 
Tempura itself 's pretty good.  My favorite 's aubergine.  It 's soft, warm, and just melt in my mouth.  The prawns... they 're crunchy from the outside, prawns inside 're juicy and sweet.  Pumkin 's sweet just liked pumkin ^^ 

Notes from a Grey Afternoon

Weather:
Overcast, cold for fingers but warm for gloves.
At:
St Jude's Cellars, Brunswick St Fitzroy
Having:
A glass of 2003 Willespie Merlot Cabernet (appropriately mouth-covering juicy, touch of wood, smooth) and a serve of quail croissants with red onion jam and pomegranate molasses - quail breast cooked through without being dry, crispy pastry, sumac sprinkled throughout, perfect melding of sweet and sour.
Before:
Ravioli nudi of spinach & ricotta dumplings baked in tomato at Federal Coffee Palace GPO,  followed by a Bolivian Clover coffee (on recommendation by Chris at Toby Estate) with a baked chocolate cheesecake brownie at Proud Mary - think "Pocket Rocket" can recognise me now.  I think I prefer the Columbian clover I had the week before (given the Bolivian was brewed a bit too hot, so it was bland and watery when it was below-burning-your-tonuge temperature, but then became fruity and juicy once it was just warm).

Watching:
People.  Jeans, bags, little dogs, bows, red cardigans, leather leggings, hats, babies, scarves, boots...
Thinking: 

• that the last time I came to St Jude's was with FH and SL for lunch which led to the inception of this blog.  Today one is in Adelaide on temporary work assignment and the other in Sydney for postgraduate studies.  That last lunch feels like such a long time ago...this menu looks a lot more enticing than the one from those days.  
• that I appreciate the space I am given here, despite the noise and diners, considering the number of late nights I have had going to farewell dinners and drinks in the one week.  Not to say that it was not fun being with friends while visiting 
  
• Monsieur Truffe - still a great place for hot chocolate, chocolate desserts and tea :)
• Panama Dining Room - thanks for the free dessert to share as first-time visitors, we were in the right place during that ridiculous thunderstorm!
• the Westin hotel lobby lounge - wine and cheese,  
• Taste of Melbourne - pre-planning our battle strategy proves hugely beneficial once again!
• Q11 - best thing about having brunch here is that afterwards you can just cross the road to have fresh oyster shots at South Melbourne Market,  
• Thanh Tran - that Vietnamese pancake never fails to impress, and
• il Fornaio - Philippa, you are a genius; if only that dessert menu was served the whole day instead of just at night!



(From front) THAT Snickers dish, chocolate fondant with poached pear (which contains a creamy surprise!) and "Snow White and Rose Red" for those who love their meringues.  Bring friends and try the whole dessert menu!

• of everybody pitching in to try making dumpling skins leading to homemade beef, mushroom, spring onion and green chilli dumplings at JJ's place 
• that I should be able to smell the 5 Senses coffee from where I am sitting, but my nose is obviously numb from too much sniffing and smelling and savouring..

Need: 
Basics.  A good pasta or a plain congee.  A French press coffee.  An apple.  A bowl of miso soup.  A piece of plain dark chocolate.  A ray of sunshine.  A drizzle of rain.
After:
Cook something that will make use of the La Latteria fior de latte I purchased just yesterday.   Perhaps a simple basil oil-drizzled pasta with heirloom tomatoes?  St Jude's does have a dark chocolate fondant, coffee, banana, peanut and vanilla mascarpone on the menu though...##

Cocktail Recipe On Request

Over the weekend, I was the judge at a friend's Iron Mixologist birthday party.  Responsible for the secret ingredients which had to be incorporated into every cocktail made for the night that wanted to be in the prize-may-not-be-available competition, I chose blood oranges and hazelnut.

I opted to try drinks only through a straw, much like the way bartenders try cocktails before they serve them to customers.  This turned out to be a sensible move as I tasted cocktails that had (respectively) tabasco sauce, hot chilli pepper sauce, mint, cream, cranberry juice and even creme de cassis with barely a cocktail mixer in sight.  Some followed recipes, others were original on-the-fly creations.

About two hours into the party I decided to get behind the bar myself to experiment with the ingredients.  I have been asked to provide the recipes for the cocktails I concocted on the night but I do note that I have not named these cocktails.  Any ideas out there?  All recipes are for one drinker and approximate measurements.

Cocktail No.1: put ice in your cocktail mixer, then a shot of white peach liqueur (in this case we used Pallini Peachello) + a shot of vodka followed by a dash of blood orange juice (in this case the blood orange juice was fresh from the Collingwood Children's Farm market and so fulfilled the bartender's fresh juice requirement).  Wet martini glass rim with a blood orange slice, and cover rim with a mixture of ground hazelnut and sugar.  Shake cocktail mixer, strain and serve in glass for sipping.

Cocktail No.2: muddle together 2 slices of blood orange, 4 torn basil leaves (or mint), a little ground hazelnut and approx. 1 tsp caster sugar (or brown sugar).  Add 1 shot of Pimms No.1 followed by a good dash of lemonade.  Stir well, then serve over ice in a tall ball glass for sipping through a straw.

Have fun making cocktails!

On Eating Mr Ed

The first horse I ever saw was on TV.  Mr Ed was, as most will recall, a talking horse on a black and white comedy series that had more brains and logic than the humans around him.  He wore dark framed glasses and had the kind of cheek that would qualify him for a stand-up comedy competition, grinning most inappropriately with his giant horse teeth whenever he had the upper hand (hoof?) in a situation.

Fast forward years ahead to South Australia, where I would chuckle at reading freeway signs saying "no horses or carriages allowed", the idea that every Australian state has a public holiday for its state horse race, and that everyone bets on the One Big Race every November.  It was a rite of passage, the day you became old enough to understand the different ways of betting on a horse race and dress up duly for the lunches and champagne teas around it.

Now, in Victoria, I hear rumblings around horse eating.

The death threats that poor Embrasse received have resulted in their pulling horse meat off the Taste of Melbourne 2010 menu, even though their three-course horse meat degustation was sold out once The Age Espresso found out about it.  This of course alerted us to the fact that horse meat is actually available for purchase to cook and eat.  Then we all realised that Australia just happens to be an exporter country in horse meat for human consumption. 

Let the Great Debate begin!

Is it, as they say, a matter of cultural background whereby Mr A may be quite happy to eat Mr Ed because Mr Ed has always featured on the Christmas dinner menu but Miss B may be very unhappy to even think of it because she used to ride Mr Ed to school and along the green pastures or beside the freeway? 

Is it perhaps an issue of resource usage, whereby horse eating should be discouraged in the way that cattle eating should be discouraged (i.e. for environmental reasons)?  One can argue that horses can be better used for law enforcement (military calvary, police horses etc), transport in remote countries, psychological therapy (children who have suffered trauma tend to get along very well with horses), and gambling activities (races).

Is it even an image matter?  After all, many countries baulk at the thought of Australians eating kangaroo meat because "how can you eat one of the icons on your own Commonwealth emblem?!" and "they look so cute and cuddly!" but many others see them as a environmental-friendly alternative to cattle as a source of red meat. 

As a child, I refused to eat turtle eggs before turtles were ever listed as an endangered species and would glare at people eating dog and cat meat.  Yet when TW alerted me to Chris Badenoch's experience with horse meat, I had to confess a twang of envy.  I wanted to be on Embrasse's list of people sampling horse meat the way the French do, with the one person I knew personally in Melbourne who had actually eaten horse meat before (raw, in Japan) and thereby piqued my gourmet interest.   I even became tempted to find out if it was possible to import the stuff from Western Australia (where the only licensed butcher for horse meat is) without incurring a confiscation order from state customs or vegans.

Am I evil?  Am I immoral?  Am I being culturally insensitive to most Australians?

All I understand is that I did not grow up riding horses and never had them as pets, that horses used for human consumption are usually specifically farmed for the purpose and therefore farmers are not permitted to affect wild horse populations like brumbies, that horses are not approaching endangerment or extinction anytime soon, and that they have actually been a part of the human diet in many parts of the world for a very long time.

I also know that a culinary delight, Roquefort blue cheese, was banned from Australia for more than a decade because food scientists in this country were concerned about the level of bacteria and the issue of unpasteurisation.  This is a cheese that has a history dating back to AD 79, that is almost revered in France as the first recipient of France's appellation-of-origin protection laws and was actually commonly applied to wounds to avoid gangrene before Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin.

With that in mind, I can only promise I will not want to eat a horse that children love to ride, wears glasses (or racing colours or military/police garb) or responds to the name "Mr Ed" (or Makybe Diva).##

The places you find as a local...

"What is there in Adelaide?" Sydneysiders and Melburnians always ask me when I talk about going there.

I could tell them about the lovely McLaren Vale winery overlooking a gorge that has one of the biggest vineyard dogs in the country and an excellent owner-barista.  I could remind them about the South  Australians' record on Masterchef Australia (3 out of 4 grand finalists in 2 seasons is definitely a heck of a strike rate), envy those who can get their hands on a slice of Maggie Beer's pheasant pie in the Barossa, enjoy roast hazelnut gelati while sitting in the sun off Rundle Street, gawk at the abundance of marbling on South Australian red meats at Feast Central Market, lick my fingers of dripping sugar syrup from Indian sweets off Gouger Street, and consume fresh oysters & salmon sashimi at a fraction of the price one would pay in Melbourne.

This time though, my trip was quite strictly personal.  One day with friends, one day with family. My friends, wonderful as they are, used their day with me as a day of food.  Food, caffeine, and more food. :)

First, Jam the Bistro on Wright Street, a mere 5 minutes' walk from Adelaide Central Market.  A rather bright, colourful cafe with plenty of weekend newspapers and magazines scattered around the place including the Saturday Age.  I decided to skip the blue swimmer crab omelette on the menu and went for the breakfast special of spanakopita omelette which was accompanied by, of course, a Vittoria cafe latte.  In Adelaide, one mainly drinks Vittoria, Perfect Cup or Rio under various guises.  Service decided to leave us alone after serving our orders so we could keep laughing over old stories and previously untold secrets despite cleaning our plates long time ago and with the continuing stream of customers coming into the place.

Then a trip to Glen Osmond Road, where we visited the South Australia representative on the Australian's Best 14 Coffee Places 2010; the Coffee Barun (jolly striving micro-roaster cafe on Main North Road, though I do think they have overstretched themselves by offering a full breakfast and pizza menu without a proper kitchen) and Rio Coffee (responsible for supplying Cibo) were both given "highly commended" status.

Bar 9 takes its coffee quite seriously - one blend for milk-based coffees, one blend for black coffees, and one barista's blend that changes every so often.  Supplied by 5 Senses, the two baristas are happy to do siphons and pourovers anytime but will also feature every other type of coffee making style when they get the chance.  On this day, they were concentrating on the three key ways of coffee making as we know them given the bustling trade they were doing.  I would have been keen to see if they could do a good Turkish coffee.

ML tried his first siphon coffee (the Brazilian on the list - walnut!) with a White Blend piccolo as his chaser (again, his first piccolo ever, followed by a second piccolo offered on the house when he spilt half of the first one). I had the barista's blend in a piccolo (ah, body) followed by the Bolivian in a pourover.  The hot chocolates here also got the nod of approval from our non-coffee drinking Mrs ML. 

Definitely.  Must.  Go.  Back.

High from caffeine, we opted to have a quick Malaysian lunch near David Jones before going home to rest.

Night fell, and it was time to go out again, this time for dessert on Goodwood Road.

Eggless is one of those night-time dessert cafes that is almost buried in the suburbs (in this case, the Methodist church next door is responsible for the carparks, and the movie theatre opposite the church had some signs of life, just barely)  It does not rely on conventional publicity, instead relying on steady word-of-mouth marketing to get its clientele.  In other words, the kind of place I used to frequent during my tertiary days.  On this night, the cafe was already almost full even though we arrived just 10 minutes after business commenced for the night, and so ML had to endure the cold air that would blast in whenever the automatic door slided open.  This happened a lot on the night - that sliding door may as well have been a revolving door.

True to its name, nothing on the menu involved eggs.  There were five single origin coffees for the french press (Jaspers Coffee because they "are the only ones who can guarantee fair trade, organic, steady supply for us", the Malaysian half of the partnership explained), eight teas in loose leaf form, and an Asian drinks section.  Most people, including us, opted for the (I presume) famous home-made teh tarik, which was quite tasty though I did think it was a touch over-priced.

Resisting the Asian dessert menu (even if hot homemade black sticky rice with coconut cream did tempt, especially when it was being served to other tables), we pondered over the Western dessert section and the chalked specials on the wall.  To keep things interesting, the dessert platter changes on a monthly basis and subject to availability.

Dessert platter of the month - Turkish delight and pistachio sorbet with Persian fairy floss, black sesame panna cotta with toffee and kiwifruit, pear and honey cheesecake & green tea tiramisu.  I do think the cake was the most successful dessert and the tiramisu a close second.  The pistachio pieces in the sorbet were too rough, undermining the delicate intent of the dessert piece, while the panna cotta was too soft and initially reminded ML of duck pate...

By the time we left, there were three groups of five huddling outside under the solo upright gas heater waiting for a table.  Again, I remembered what it was like in university, the importance of turning up to places like this early in the night to secure a table.

Only in South Australia, will night-time dessert cafes, not bars or fine dining restaurants (yes yes, Kenji is the exception , do not remind me), own the hottest tables in town (it once was the case in Brisbane as well with Freestyles Desserts, but they went franchise-style and lost quality as a result)


Bless those sugar-high, winery surrounded, sober appetites.##

Vue de Monde

It is sometime to complicate to take picture and enjoy foods at the same time.  Moreover, there are places that I don't want to take picture while dining there.  Vue de Monde is one of the places.  Luckily, Beansprout 's so kind to share pictures in this article. 

We started with Amuse Bouche served on a rectangular stone.  They called it 'Muesli bar'.  It 's a mixture of grains and seeds and seasoned with miso.

First course is 'Jardin Delegumes'.  The Heide vegetable garden 's lovely presented with winter vegetables and garnished with snow-like seasoning.   

Second course is 'Saumon Fume'.  It 's a cured, sugared, and smoked salmon.  Its smoke is from coconut ash.  My first impression 's I want chopsticks since the dish looks very Japanese.  There 're 5 salmon pieces.  The cleverness of this dish 's the taste of salmon changes piece by piece.  I think the temperature of salmon somehow dictates its taste.

Third course is truffle dish from WA.  It's a really rich and deep flavour dish with Manjimup truffle, fried duck egg, and onion sauce, which called 'Oeuf de Canard et Truffe'.  Egg white 's so soft and a bit running. 

After the third course, they served Sorbet au concmbre to cleanse palate.  It's a combination of cucumber sorbet, elderflower granite, and frozen lime.  Classic and yummy.

Our fourth dish 's Boeuf de Blackmore et Bettrave.  Blackmore wagyu steak with beetroot, mashed potato and wood sorrel.  It 's more like a confit with the brown crust and pink meat.  What interested us 's the heart shape micro herb, which later on we found out that it 's a wood sorrel.

Another cleaser 's the Entremet sucre, the lolly.  The lolly 's vanilly ice-cream with popping candy.  It was served with lemonade.  To best enjoy this dish 's eat lolly then sip lemonade.  So that popping candy 'll pop in y'r mouth.  We were warned that 'no dipping lolly in the lemonade' :D

The pre-dessert's Oeufs de Poules.  They 're served in eggshells within 6 eggs-carton.  From the left hand side, Pistachio custard, Prune&Armagnac eggnog, and Grand-Marnier mousse.  They 're as good as my last visit there.

The desserts are chocolate souffle, carrot cake (deconstructed), and Rhubard&milk.  Our waiter 's so kind to arrange for different desserts for all three of us.  Since Beausprout told him that she doesn't like the texture of soft merienge or mashmellow.

We were too full for coffee and tea but the petit ful is too good to resist.  Individual chocolate disguised as Lamington cake, Nugat served with chocolate and orange rind, Tulie and lemon curd.